1969 Ford Mach 1 - A Gem In Green

Ford Called It Black Jade, But David Stevenson Really Wanted This Green Mach 1 For Its SCJ Engine

Black Jade was an interesting Mustang exterior color for '69. First of all, color code C wasn't black at all. It was actually a dark, dark green, so dark, in fact, that it looked black in the shade. But in the sun, Black Jade transformed into a beautiful shade of metallic green, looking very much like the gemstone-like mineral it was named after.

It was a popular color. Nearly 10 percent of '69 Mustangs were painted Black Jade. We have to wonder how many buyers might have checked off Black Jade on the order sheet without realizing it was actually green, not black.

None of that matters to David Stevenson. When he got the chance to buy a '69 Mach 1 with the rare 428 Super Cobra Jet powerplant, he "took the plunge," as he says, to make a big-block step up from his former '70 Boss 302 and '66 Shelby GT350H Mustangs.

"I tracked down the original owner, Larry Stauness," David tells us. "He ordered the car with a C6 automatic and 3.91 gears to race at Mission Raceways, a quarter-mile dragstrip near Vancouver, British Columbia. The car ran 12.8s, just 0.08-second off the Street Stock national record at the time."

After relishing the SCJ's power and torque on the street for a couple of months, David stripped the fastback body to its bare shell as he embarked on a total restoration using a borrowed rotisserie. For over three years, David labored to restore the Mach 1 to Mustang Club of America concours condition.

"I enjoyed the challenge of hunting down the correct parts," David says. "Some of the SCJ engine parts were missing, including the smog equipment. I found a lot of the items at SEMO Mustang and on the Internet."

David says he handled the entire restoration with the exception of paint and reassembling the engine, which was capably bolted back together by Kerrisdale Speed in Kurrey, British Columbia.

Even though Black Jade proved a popular color for '69, it lasted only one year on the Mustang color chart. For '70, Ford cleared up any possible confusion-was it black or green?-by renaming color code C as Dark Ivy Green Metallic.